"Believe it or not, this idea has been festering in me for five or six years," Krier said, amazed at the amount of volunteers who stepped forward. "Normally when you're putting something on you have trouble in finding people to help out. But people came by and said hey, we wish we could do more."

He got the idea while out paddling.

"Every year I would go out with the Uncle Sam outfit on and wish people 'Happy Fourth of July,' and a lot of them would start singing the Star Spangled Banner, and that's what gave me the idea to see if we could do it on a mass basis," he said.

He brought his idea up to the residents of Dollar Bay and "the volunteers just came out of the woodwork."

"They said 'hey, we've had these people in our bay for many, many years, let's see if we can do something a little bit different,'" he continued.

You could have heard a pin drop on Lake Orion during the moment of silence.

At 2 p.m. the 25 Dollar Bay volunteers paddled to anchored boaters of Dollar Bay—who had no idea what was coming—and instructed them to adhere to four things: At 3 p.m. to turn off their radios, to join in with Barry and Kathy McMinn and their singers for the first instrumental song, To be silent for a full minute after the first song was sung; and to sing the three other songs handed to them to finish up the festivity.

The moment of silence was in honor of those serving, and those who have served for the USA.

"If you could imagine 1,000 people being able to be silent, while on the bay, it was really moving," he said.

Many of the volunteers were young adults, middle school and high school students, who went around to every property owner of Dollar Bay to inform them of the program a week before the surprise sing-a-long.